We're off to see some wizards, and of course some Disney as well (Dec. '21 TR X2 now) 21-JAN-UPDATE finally!

[kittylady1972]

How fun is that????
Yikes! I know there have been so many flight delays and cancellations between weather and Covid related issues.
Here in Ontario we have never really moved past Covid restrictions. We have always had an indoor mask mandate and while we had a brief reprieve this fall, we are back to capacity restrictions everywhere. Joy, joy! At least we aren't Quebec where they are implementing a curfew again. Can't wait for all this to be a distant memory.

We did have a super fun trip...despite the crazy flight cancellation.

We are back to mask mandates in our county here, and most of the state (I think) but capacity changes don't seem to be happening. Much more disturbing is I'm about to get on a flight in a week to South Carolina to attend a birthday BASH for my dad and his girlfriend...so lots of people...in one room...likely not wearing masks. I feel like I shouldn't go...but it's family. We are all vaxed here (as is my dad and gf) but haven't all completed our boosters yet. I also can't wait for this to be beyond us...if only everybody would just get vaccinated. I know hospitals and medical facilities are getting overwhelmed again.

Wow, you've had quite the whirlwind the last few weeks. Looking forward to hearing more about Universal. Thinking we may finally bite the bullet and go on our next trip.

Yes it was a fun few weeks and hopefully I'll get around to updating here. Universal was INSANE for sure during this trip but other times not so much. Happy to answer any questions. Have been thinking about you and how you guys did during all this weather. Last week I only went to work for one full day...and two other partial days. Then I saw that crazy backup in NoVa on 95...what a cluster that was for sure!

Now I'm trying to plan out my next THREE trips and just waiting for Disney to start selling APs again too.

 

[kittylady1972]

So one of these days updates will happen I promise. Right now I'm spending a lot of time trying to plan out our March trip. DH and I plan to fly down early on a Wednesday, then we'll fly the kids down on Saturday morning as well as my FIL. The problem right now...finding a place to stay! So I have BOARDWALK booked via DVC through Sunday but it won't hold all of us. So I need a place to stay probably Sat night through the following Friday night or Saturday morning...and there is NO DVC availability as well as NO Disney Resort availability. Even Shades of Green isn't available but that could open up later so I continue to stalk ALL of them. In the meantime I'm still working on the flights back for all of us, plus the flights down for the rest of the family on Saturday. AND the rental car...I've managed to lower the cost of that a few times already and right now Thrifty is kinda on my crap list so while they are usually my go-to I'm now looking at anybody other than them for my rental. In fact, I have a trip this weekend to South Carolina and I just cancelled my Thrifty car and have rebooked through Alamo (which is my next go-to rental company). I've saved quite a bit on that too by getting one of their last minute deals. We have the car for less than 24 hours and right now we are paying about $45 which is pretty good.

So I'll continue to stalk alternatives to the Disney Resort properties. We may need to consider an off-site place nearby and we've stayed at a few in the past that we've liked so that will be okay if that's what has to happen. I know it means no extra hours for us in the parks but we'll just have to deal with that for now. If we can eventually get into Shades we'll still get that advantage so keeping my fingers crossed there.

 

[kittylady1972]

BIG UPDATE: We are almost all set for March. Flights down and back were finally booked for DH and myself. Spring Break was starting to scare me with prices changing often. The flight I planned to book back jumped $40 each so we made alternative plans and booked our flights. Done.

I checked the SOG website after dinner and YAY they had our dates available...at least most of them. So 2 rooms are booked there from Sunday through Friday. We really love SOG and are glad to have the opportunity to stay there again.

We do have a slight issue in that we can't all fit into our Boardwalk Room on Saturday night when the rest of our group arrives. I'll still need to work that out but it's the least of my worries.

I managed to get a much better deal on my rental SUV just in case we need a larger vehicle. I still need my oldest kid to decide if he plans to join us for the weekend.

So glad to have so much of this now set and I no longer have to stalk so many different sites. The room was the one thing really worrying me and now that it and the return flights are done I can work out the rest.

 

[kastoney]

ave been thinking about you and how you guys did during all this weather. Last week I only went to work for one full day...and two other partial days. Then I saw that crazy backup in NoVa on 95...what a cluster that was for sure!

Sounds like we both may work for the government as that was my schedule last week too Casey was out of school for the entire week. They said it was for weather but I think it was really covid related.

Thankfully no 95 issues for us. We live off of 66 but had just driven home from Georgia on 95 2 days before.

Even Shades of Green isn't available but that could open up later so I continue to stalk ALL of them.

Looks like you've got it figured out but i was gonna say we've had luck just waiting SoG reservations out. We haven't stayed there in a few years but its such a good and convenient option.

 

[kittylady1972]

Sounds like we both may work for the government as that was my schedule last week too Casey was out of school for the entire week. They said it was for weather but I think it was really covid related.

Ah...perhaps we do! Yeah it was a nice little break. This week I'll have a short week as I'm utilizing some of my provided administrative leave to get my COVID booster (finally) and recover from it. My oldest son got his on Sunday, amidst all the fun weather we had here at home, and he spent yesterday recovering from it.

Thankfully no 95 issues for us. We live off of 66 but had just driven home from Georgia on 95 2 days before.

That's good!

Looks like you've got it figured out but i was gonna say we've had luck just waiting SoG reservations out. We haven't stayed there in a few years but its such a good and convenient option.

Oh yes, I'm a well versed stalker of all travel related websites, and that includes SOG. Since they have a 30 day cancellation policy, I tend to wait until around that time to do more stalking figuring people might cancel. We really do enjoy staying there and DH and my youngest son have decided they have some of the best buffalo wings on property. My daughter likes having the Starbucks in the lobby of course. I like that food there, including in the little shop, is reasonably priced.

So have I missed it (probably) but do you have another trip planned down for this year already?

 

[kittylady1972]

So a quick update for me...I did get our Saturday night at SOG booked so I extended our reservation for both rooms. I guess that means we will drop the Saturday night at Boardwalk and just move over to Shades on Saturday morning. I really wish I could just book Boardwalk for the whole week for all of us, but alas I don't have the points for that.

I also spent the last few days booking a ton of Disney ADRs for us. Sadly some of the ones I wanted were not available, particularly for my birthday. However with Flying Fish and some others taking new reservations starting this week, I plan to do some modifications and hopefully get those. I know I'll move around a lot of the current ones for sure, but I know how tough it is to get anything these days so at least for now we have some meal options for pretty much every single day.

I think I managed to get the rental car down a little bit more now as well. Stalking pays off again. I also booked the flights for 2 of my kids and my FIL to get to Florida...they will leave Saturday morning. I think I have finally figured out where to park in the short-term garage at the airport for the easiest walk to the Spirit Airlines counter now. I was shocked that the Thursday before this 3-day weekend for many that the airport wasn't crowded and there was NOBODY at the Spirit check-in line which never happens. I will say that the Frontier airlines check-in counter was a MADHOUSE though. Suddenly extra thankful we didn't try to fly them in March, as I was considering it. The line stretched a long way down the terminal for all people trying to check bags I guess at the same time and only TWO desks available for that airline.
*****************************************
In non-Disney news...just returned from a very quick weekend trip down to South Carolina to attend my dad and his gf's "75+1" birthday party. All I can say is I'm glad last week, before the 'winter weather event" was really predicted, we chose to move our return flight on Sunday from evening to morning. Our reasoning at the time was that SWA has had a lot of flight cancellations recently, and for that small airport they had only 3 direct flights back to our airport that day. We moved to an 8am from a 7pm so if the 8am was cancelled we'd get 2 more chances to try to get home that day. As it turns out, due to the weather, the 8am was the ONLY direct flight NOT cancelled that day. Needless to say our return flight Sunday was packed full but it did get out close to on time and we arrived back at home well before the weather started. This also meant we felt better about basically putting our daughter right on the road around 10:30am for her drive back to school in West Virginia so that she could beat the weather also. I hated that her visit was so short (she drove home from school on Friday evening) but at least she did make the trip. Our flight down Saturday morning at 10:45am was uneventful, I got our rental car down to $37 for the DAY (we had it less than 24 hours) which made me happy, and we really enjoyed a fun evening party with good food and lots of family love on Saturday night. We partied from 5:30pm-10:30pm, returned to my dad's house to get some sleep around 11pm, and then were up at 5am Sunday for our 8:15am flight home. I'm so glad we flew since the weather for my relatives all driving back home on Sunday was not great but they all arrived home safely!

Anyway the rest of the weekend was recovery, though I think my kids were disappointed that I did NOT become as entertaining as some of my relatives did Saturday night with the open bar. I had a few drinks pretty early on, but then had some food and switched to water later, which was good.

So I've got a pretty short week at work this week, and then after next week I'm actually leaving my job in this particular division (and building) and on Jan 31st will start a brand new job (with the same overall group) but in a different building and with a different group and a different position. It's exciting and scary at the same time, but for my own sanity it's something that had to happen.

That's about it from here! Maybe this week while I'm home recovering from my booster I can knock out a few updates!

 

[kittylady1972]

Day 2 Continued...all about the food

After our day of indulging in food...and a little bit of rest time in our hotel room...it was time to get dressed so we could go...EAT.

I don't know that we were terribly hungry, but soon we made our way over to Topolino's. We were seated quickly and soon we ordered some drinks and they brough out some fabulous bread.




I forget what this bread was called, but it was delicious. Tried not to eat too much of it...but it was soon evident I had failed.

DH was all about the escargot here which I had heard was fabulous...so he ordered that. That's a big escarNO for me...but he liked them:


I don't think I got an appetizer since I knew it would be too much. No matter the bread did me in anyway...yet after consulting with our waitress, I chose this fish:

It was very well cooked but I guess my tastes tend towards a little more salty and the sauce here just wasn't quite as rich as I would have liked. It didn't matter since I could barely eat even half of this.

DH chose this veal chop I believe...which he loved and would have eaten right off the bone by hand.


The atmosphere here is really nice and our server was fabulous.


When it came to dessert, I really had no room for anything. DH knew he wanted to try Creme Brulee since that's one of his favorites. I really did debate and after consulting (again) with our waitress between the lava cake and the Fruits of the Forest below:

Vanilla and Citrus Crème Brûlée
Morello Cherry Compote, Strawberry Foam, Sugared Beignets, Chocolate Meringues, 50th Anniversary Chocolate Stamp



Warm Chocolate Lava Cake
Caramel Center, Chantilly and Raspberries



Fruits of the Forest
Black Currant Mousse, Blueberry Sorbet, Marinated Berries and Hibiscus Cake (Plant-based)

I knew the fruit would be the better option for me on a full stomach. Now despite the long conversation with our waitress about this...it was clear she forgot:



Now when it arrived at the table, I knew immediately it was wrong. Yet since I'm...well me and hate to make waves...and the waitress wasn't around at first...I just started eating it. UGH. It was good but I was just so full. DH loved his of course and when the waitress stopped by to check on us it was clear she didn't realize it was a mistake.

Once finished we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant but I knew...I just had to keep moving. We decided we'd just head over to Universal Parks and walk around a little bit. Plus our friends were due on a plane that evening and we had to go get them. I knew going back to the room we'd probably sleep...and that would be bad.

Universal though...was a hot mess.

Not evident from here but they had a line winding back and forth just to get to the first line of security after the parking lot. And it moved slowly. And we were baffled. Then we got to security and they had signs there indicating it was a private event. Why weren't those signs evident elsewhere? It didn't seem they were letting people even into the CityWalk area. So we got to the front and turned around and left.

We decided to just head to the airport and wait in the cell phone lot there for our friends flight, even though we knew it would be some time. The cell phone lot at MCO is actually really nice...they have a restroom and displays of the flights coming in there. We parked in a spot and since it was a nice evening..we just napped in the car.

We were probably there at least an hour but what else could we do? Soon our friends' flight arrived and we headed over to pick them up. We had warned them earlier in the day to get in a nap as we planned to pick them up and go out not back to the room. Well even though we were no longer up for that, they didn't forget...and so we headed back to the area near our hotel and to a nearby bar and grill that was still open.

We were seated quickly and I just had water, DH had a drink or two and our friends got some appetizers and drinks also. I will say I had a few fries that were delicious and we watched some football on the big screens there from our table. Eventually we finished up and headed out probably around 11pm or so. We headed back to the hotel and made plans to get up whenever the next morning, enjoy breakfast at our hotel, before checking out and heading to the parks.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Hiya just found this report of yours this morning too and am enjoying reading along. I haven't been to UO in years though I did always enjoy the parks there but lately I've read a lot of people saying just how crazy and disorganized things are over there which seems a bit of a shame. Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.